Warframe's Continuity Rant - Aladv Infested or Not? (Spoilers)

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This has been a problem since Warframe's inception, but up until the past few weeks and months the issue has polarized. Personally I think that having a much more structured, linear, and purposeful story arch through quests has been a step in the right direction in terms of making Warframe something more than it ever has been, albeit a bit unconventional.

However, I'll be the first to point out the flaws that quests and Warframe's historic structure have encountered. One such obvious issue is character and event continuity - or lack thereof. And arguably one of the worst offenders in this category is 'the story of Aladv.'

Let's take a trip back in time. The following is a basic synopsis of Aladv invovlement in the Warframe unsiverse:

Spoiler

We first hear of Aladv in Operation Sling Stone, where we learn he is the head of Grineer Relations and has begun to stir up trouble between the two factions. We then later encounter him again during Operation Arid Fear, where he has now tried to use information gleaned from Sling Stone to use against the Grineer. At this point in his story, we are still more or less unclear about his motives, persona, and goals. This all changed when the Gradivus Dilemma struck, and suddenly this dude behind the scenes we'd heard so much about became a living, breathing entity with beliefs and aspirations. After losing the war against Sargus Ruk, he retreated off to his work despite suffering a terrible loss, which brings us to the Hunt for Aladv. Disassociated from the Corpus, Aladv is now a fugitive with is only ex-supporters out for his blood. Once he is discovered and his plot to mass produce Zanuka units ultimately fails, we are led to believe he is all but finished. Some time passes, and we see him again in the Suspicious Shipments incident, and this is the first time Aladv shows an signs of infested influence. Two more events go by, Operation Breeding Grounds and Mutalist Incursions, and the long story short is Aladv becomes infested, devises some infested fueled plot to mutate the Technocyte virus, and basically causes a massive outbreak that results in the mass-infestation around Eris and the creation of the (new) J-3 Golem in an attempt to assimilate the whole system. After this more or less fails, he tries again in Patient Zero, where he attempts to hybridize Warframes with infestation - which once again fails. The last time we see Aladv publicly before the Second Dream quest is introduced is in Operation Tubemen of Regor where he is trying to convince us he can cure the Technocyte virus with research hidden in Regor's labs, and this time he is victorious (on PC and PS4). Then, during the Second Dream quest, he helps us try and to unlock the secrets of the Moon and out past. It is important to note that his infestation at this point has begun to recede, indicating he was telling the truth about the cure during Operation Tubemen of Regor. Finally, the last time we see him is in Operation Shadow Debt, where his is running from the Stalker and his Acolytes who are trying to kill him for reasons unknown (thought it is believed that it was for aiding us in the Second Dream quest). At this point, he is no longer visibly infested, as one would expect.

So, that is basically the foot notes version of Aladv's involvement in Warframe thus far. In all fairness, his overall story arch is actually somewhat coherent and continuous. This brings us to modern day though, and what is currently the visible problem in the game.

Aladv can currently be encountered in several ways. The first being his boss arena on Jupiter, where he is most certainly not infested. The second being his other boss arena, where he is most certainly bacon-ified. Lastly, we can see him in the Second Dream quest, where he's kind of infested.

DE... which is it???

I can only imagine the confusion this arch has caused for new players, who probably started off by seeing him on Jupiter, then in the quest, and then after farming enough coordinates, on Eris. And that's assuming they weren't involved in any previous events where Aladv was present. I consider myself lucky, I joined the game right near the end of Arid Fear, which meant that his character arch was more or less just starting out and I can kind of make out the basic timeline of his saga, but even me, someone who's been around since August of 2013, is confused.

And they keepaddingmore!

This wouldn't be a problem if one of the following safeguards were in place:

1.) All of his previous involvement in Warframe was accessible (ie. previous events playable as quests)

OR

2.) We can only see one instance of him in game at a time. (which is no fun at all, so let's not do that)

Now I'll be the first to recognize that DE would probably love to have all that past content available for new players and old players alike to go through and enjoy either for the first time or again, but of course we have to be realistic when it comes to development (time to allocate resources, available funds, product vs. return on investment, moving forward with future goals, etc.) and that doing something like that is both low on the priority list, and a lofty venture.

But come on guys, we gotta fix this. If we want Warframe to eventually have a full, coherent, cinematic storyline with intriguing character development and enticing event archs, we need to take a step back and fix what we've already got before laying more on top of it. Aladv's story is just one example of the mess we've dug ourselves into, and we keep digging further with every event and quest that is released.

What are your thoughts on this?

TL;DR - Warframe has story continuity issues, and with every update that goes by they get slightly worse in certain areas. Is this something that needs to be addressed, or do we stay the course?

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Yeah, honestly I think that's why they haven't been having as many 'Operation' Events recently. They realized what a flawed method of storytelling it is. As you say, people who did not participate in Tubement will have no knowledge of how Alad V was cured, and people who did not participate in Shadow Debt will have no idea that we ever repaid our favour to him.

I think a good start is exactly what they did with Jordas Golem. His regular Assassination mission is only unlocked after he is encountered in the Quest and his role in the story is properly established. In an ideal world, every boss would have an introductory Quest associated with them, and they could be integrated into the story in the appropriate sequence.

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1. PC and Xbox decided to cure him. PS4 sabotaged the labs and the cure.

2. Alad V is normal up to Mutalist Incursions, Infested up to Tubemen, then back to normal by the time 2nd Dream hit.

3. He's a psychopath who hurt Valkyr, tried to auction off Mag, and turned sleeping Tenno/Warframes into an abomination. Who cares about him worth anything less than impaling him Aztec and Vlad the Impaler styles.

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He still has some scarring so the infestation isn't completely gone. I'm really hoping they don't have him fully cured and that the infestation will take him over eventually. Having him come back weakens the threat of the entire faction since it is supposed to be a 'fate worse than death' situation not a 'get some rest, take two pills a day and you'll be fine' situation.

I feel everything should be replayable as it is a shame to not be able to revisit old lore and boss fights. The lore at least should be accessible, maybe added into the Codex and possibly tidied into some sort of timeline. I fear new players wont know why some of us are so anti-Alad V as they wont know his backstory of backstabbing.

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The biggest continuity issue I have right now is the sortie transmissions, where one day I get a message from Alad V, and the next day from infested Alad V. Or the other way round. The transmissions are not a necessity and should be removed to avoid confusion.

Somewhere I read that some of the old events would be turned into quests eventually, which would reslove some issues (like the Alad V mumbo-jumbo).

It would be also nice if there was some kind of in-game story journal, so we would at least be able to read about the past events.

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The biggest continuity issue I have right now is the sortie transmissions, where one day I get a message from Alad V, and the next day from infested Alad V. Or the other way round. The transmissions are not a necessity and should be removed to avoid confusion.

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I can see where you're coming from and personally I think the Codex needs to be updated to give a quick backstory for the various big players and a summary of all the events they've been involved with.

17 minutes ago, Genitive said:

The biggest continuity issue I have right now is the sortie transmissions, where one day I get a message from Alad V, and the next day from infested Alad V. Or the other way round. The transmissions are not a necessity and should be removed to avoid confusion.

Personally one of the theories I've seen kicked around that I'm quite fond of is the idea that one the infestation infests something they gain the ability to create duplicates of the victim. This is based on a quote from Jordas during The Jordas Precept that is as follows:

Spoiler

" Ordis, you need to know. I lied about Precept 44. I am not the only one. They made me say that. To bait you.THERE ARE SO MANY MORE. "

This is substantiated by the Corrupted Healers Synthesis entry (Link to the full entry on the wiki):

As this entry shows the infested were able to make perfect duplicates of the Infested Remballa right down to the fact that they ALL share an empathic link to her brother Ontella (The speaker in the entry), so the Sortie transmission thing may not be a outright contradiction.

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Alad V was the Corpus Board's liason with the Grineer. He had a deal going with Sargus Ruk regarding any Warframe cryopods found in a certain region (probably around Mars since that's where trouble later kicked off). Ruk found out Alad had welched on the deal and was keeping the warframes and experimenting on them (to create Zanuka). Ruk didn't take it too well and started all out war on Mars, starting in Gradivus. The Gradivus Dilemma saw the Tenno divided for the first time as some chose to support the Grineer out of loyalty to the Tenno that Alad V was experimenting on (bear in mind that none of us had experienced Second dream by this point) while others chose noble sacrifice and supported the Corpus to prevent Grineer expansion despite this leaving our sister, Valkyr, in the hands of Alad V. Alad lost and ran to Jupiter while unleashing a horde of infested to cover his tracks but the Corpus Board were not happy with the financial loss his war with the Grineer had caused so Frohd Bek (Darvo's father) helped us track him down in exchange for us letting him keep the facilities and ships once we'd cleared the infested out. We then reach his first instance as a boss, accompanied by his Zanuka prototype, rescue Valkyr and start replicating the warfame as best we can from what's left, scars and all, both physical and psychological. Later we meet his Mutalist form and find out he's been experimenting on Mesa. Two of our sisters were tortured by him yet the community still tried to cure him.